Annual Progress Report: 2012-13

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Contents

Navya Disha at a Glance ............................................................................................... 3

Executive Summary ....................................................................................................... 4

Reflecting back ............................................................................................................. 5

Background ............................................................................................................... 5

Beneficiaries Profile ................................................................................................... 5

Participation of other key stakeholders and collaborating organizations ...................... 5

Need Analysis ........................................................................................................... 6

Project review ........................................................................................................... 8

Street Plays ............................................................................................................ 9

Kendra Level training: ........................................................................................... 11

Door-to-door visits: ............................................................................................. 12

Masons’ training: ................................................................................................. 13

Meetings with Gram Panchayat members ............................................................. 14

Block level workshops: ........................................................................................ 16

Village wall paintings: .......................................................................................... 17

Partnerships ............................................................................................................ 19

Lessons Learned .......................................................................................................... 20

Looking Ahead ........................................................................................................... 21

Appendix – A ............................................................................................................. 23

Operational roll-out of the Program: ....................................................................... 23

Loan programs tweaked to meet the needs of the people ......................................... 23

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Navya Disha at a Glance

1. Project Title : Promotion and Implementation of Water

Supply and Sanitation through Water Credit

2. Project number : GRK-I0002-11

3. Project Duration : September 2011 to February 2016

4. Project start date : 01st April 2011

5. Project completion date : 29th February 2016

6. Reporting Period : Sept – 2012 to Sept – 2013

7. No. of target villages

/slums during this phase : 5,400 slums / villages

8. Total budget sanctioned from Water.org : Rs 29,522,697

(Whole project period)

9. Current Year Budget

(support from Water.org) : Rs 6,217,684

10. Amount spent up to this reporting period : Rs 5,307,498

11. % of fund utilization : 85%

(Compared with current year budget)

12. Water and Sanitation Loans Disbursed

Loans Number of families

For Water 18862

For Sanitation 29445

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Executive Summary

Navya Disha has been working with Water.org form 2009 to build awareness of the

rural households in Karnataka, Maharastra and Tamilnadu on use of sanitation systems

and safe drinking water. This project is named “TMT- Navya Disha1”. TMT-Navya Disha

closely works with Grameen Koota (GK) in mobilizing loan funds required by the

members for construction of toilets and getting water connections. TMT proposes to

work in the branches where GK operates, by building awareness and motivating them to

construct toilets of their own and have water connections to their houses.

Our reach in the last year is summarized below:

TMT-Navya Disha has been able to reach out to almost 2,00,000 people who have

benefitted from a variety of our activities. The break-up is captured below:

In addition, this year, we have coordinated wall paintings to spread awareness in 5o

villages.

State # of Branches/Offices # of Customers

Karnataka 149 303190

Maharashtra 43 84310

Tamil Nadu 5 5862

Activities No of activities Beneficiaries

Kendra Meeting 2710 104988

Mason Training 21 1980

Street Play 296 78600

School Children Training 34 6120

Branch Staff Training 66 966

Branch level awareness workshop 13 4700

Grama Panchayath Training 13 392

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Reflecting back

Background

Based on the success of pilot program on providing access to water and toilet facilities to

clients of Grameen Koota, TMT-Navya Disha and Water.org have collaborated to scale

the program and achieve greater outreach through second phase of the project with an

aim to achieve 30,000 water connections and 20,000 toilets during the period 2011-16.

It has been a very challenging year for Navya Disha in terms of motivating people to get

access to water connections amid fears of drought looming large on the people of

Karnataka and Maharashtra due to failed monsoon in the respective states.

However, during the 4rd quarter, Navya Disha made significant efforts to enable 7523

water connections and 13104 toilet constructions to Grameen Koota clients. Grameen

Koota has supported the program by extending credit facilities to those requiring

financial assistance with various loan products.

Beneficiaries Profile

Grameen Koota is operational in three states – Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil

Nadu and is one of the leading providers of microfinance and developmental services

to poor and low-income households. Grameen Koota’s operations are mainly

concentrated in rural areas with around 65% of the total client base from rural areas.

Around 34% of the Grameen Koota clients are self-employed and are into petty

trading or sales, followed by agriculture and allied activities at 30%. More than 70%

of Grameen Koota clients live on less than $2 a day/PPP.

Participation of other key stakeholders and collaborating organizations

TMT-Navya Disha have joined hands to create awareness on importance of

access to clean water and sanitation facilities; providing technical assistance to

beneficiaries; and conducting capacity building exercises Grameen Koota staff.

Awareness is created among beneficiaries by Navya Disha team through

Kendra level trainings, street plays, taluka level workshops, masons’ training,

training to Gram Panchayat members. Navya Disha provides technical

assistance to beneficiaries on construction of toilets and water connections.

Grameen Koota provides the platform to TMT-Navya Disha to reach out to its

clients. Grameen Koota facilitates Navya Disha in awareness creation by

performing Kendra level trainings to its clients, by providing support in

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organizing street plays, block level workshops, Gram Panchayat members

training. Grameen Koota identifies potential beneficiaries, conducts pre-

screening by way of credit and technical appraisal and shortlists beneficiaries

for water and sanitation facilities. Grameen Koota arranges for the required

funds and extends credit facilities to the shortlisted beneficiaries. Loan

utilization checks are also performed by Grameen Koota and provides Navya

Disha information on loan repayment and utilization on frequent basis.

See Appendix A for description of the operational roll-out of the program.

Need Analysis

The need to clean water and sanitation facilities is high – however, it is important to

understand the realities at the grassroots level to ensure that we are able to fill the gap in

an effective manner.

Below are the findings of the government study:

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In 2009, an empirical study was conducted to understand the effect on income and

quality of life cause by health issues and related expense. Findings of the study are

summarized below:

Around 30 to 35% of the earned income was spent on health related expenses

More than 80% of the rural families do not have access to toilet

Only two in ten families had an individual water tap connections in their house

20% of the women travel a distance of more than 1 km to fetch potable water

Equal percentage of women spent roughly 3 hours daily to fetch water mostly out

of their earning time

Religious & cultural reasons, inconvenience and financial constraints contributed

significantly to the low access to proper sanitation facilities. Lack of access to clean

drinking water was due to low availability of potable water and areas around the source

of portable water are contaminated. Further, there isn’t proper storage and purification

of water as a result of financial constraints.

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Project review

There are two key elements to ensure an increase in access to clean water and

sanitation facilities – one is awareness and the other is access to affordable loans to

implement the infrastructure needed to bridge the gaps

Product Type Purpose Amount (Rs) Interest Rate

(%) Tenor (weeks)

Home

Improvement

Loans

For construction of

toilets Up to Rs. 10,000 22% 104

For water connection,

water storage and

water purification

Up to Rs. 5,000 22% 52

Jayashree’s family is small with four members. In her

village, drinking water is available once a week. In addition

to her immediate family, her relatives also live in the same

building – everyone is facing the same issue of water

scarcity. The storage capacity of the tank is 1000 litres and

it is not sufficient for the family’s use for an entire week. As

a result, they all chip in some money to buy water from a

water tank.

There are times when not all families in the building contribute an equal share to buy

the water; this leads to some families contributing a lot more for the water. For

Jayashree, it becomes more of an issue since her relatives are also in the same building.

When her family is forced to pitch in more for the water and/or her relatives use up

more water, she does not speak up to her relatives so as not to jeopardize the family

relationship. Despite all this, the family relationship is strained because of water.

One fine day, she came to know about Grameen Koota and availed loan, purchased a

water tank and motor to help with the water problem. She is now happy that there is

enough storage facility and is very grateful for Grameen Koota for helping put an end

to daily squabbles that was caused because of water scarcity.

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AWARENESS ACTIVITIES:

Details of various activities conducted by Navya Disha team as a part of awareness

campaign, capacity building exercises and technical assistance to clients are captured

below.

Street Plays:

Navya Disha adopts a unique and effective way to create high impact among general

public and clients on the importance of

access to clean water and sanitation

facilities. Navya Disha hires a professional

cultural team who perform drama which

spreads important information related to

water and sanitation facilities in public

places through various modes such as

thematic songs and folk dance. The main

advantage of street plays is not only

attracting community towards their

performance, but also follow their

performance for longer time and in

influencing them adopt right hygiene practices in their lives. During the said project

year,

Navya Disha organized 332 street plays (in so many villages) witnessed by around

55,000 people.

Targeted number of street plays in the

project year + Back log of the lost year

572

Achieved in the 1st Quarter 212

Achieved in the 2nd

Quarter 40

Achieved in the 3rd Quarter 48

Achieved in the 4th Quarter 32

Total 332

“I am not aware of the importance of WatSan before this program , Now I am confident of

motivating my constituency people”

-- a GP member of Uyyamballi, Kanakapura during the show

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Kendra Level training:

This is an effort to reach out to all

clients of Grameen Koota in the

branches where water and

sanitation program is launched. The

message on the importance of water

and sanitation facilities and the ill-

effects in the absence of these

facilities are explained to the clients

using IEC design material. The clients

are educated and motivated to

follow hygiene practices in their

lives. The clients are also told about

the credit facilities extended by Grameen Koota for the purpose.

Navya Disha team trains Grameen Koota staff on conducting these trainings at Kendra

level and initially does hand-holding by conducting real demonstrations at the Kendra

meetings.

During the year 2012-13, around 2000 kendra level review meetings were conducted,

reaching out to approximately 12,900 clients across 155 Grameen Koota branches.

Navya Disha team have been a part of 928 such kendra level trainings and conducted

demonstrations.

Targeted Client Outreach in the

project year

6,000

Actual achieved (Navyadisha staff) 12,900

Actual achieved (GK staff) 29,800

“We never realized the importance of WatSan before this training”

-- Dashavara GP members, Channapatna

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Door-to-door visits:

Navya Disha has been making positive

interventions by making door-to-door visits to

beneficiary houses and providing them

technical assistance in terms of helping them to

identify the right location in their sites to come

up with construction, guiding them on pre-

construction techniques and post-construction

usage and maintenance.

Also, some of the key post-disbursement

technical recommendations provided by Navya Disha are:

Water Connection Toilet Construction

Tap connection shall be

constructed with platform of

dimension 2 ft * 2ft * 2ft

Tap shall be installed in the

middle of the platform.

Tap/Water connection should be

in front of/behind the house and

installed away from the drainage

There should be connection

(canal/Pipe) to drainage for flow

of excess/waste water

If, it is away from drainage or no

access to drainage, then

beneficiary is advised to excavate

small soak/percolation fit.

Basement should be of 3ft*4ft

dimension

Height of the structure may vary

from 5. ½ ft to 6 ft

Roof should slope down

towards the front door

Door shall be fixed in order to

open outside

Pan shall be fixed slopping

backwards

There should be ventilation at

both side walls

No air out pipe shall be installed

Training provided to observe

hygiene practices:

Use water before and after

toilet; clean toilet daily; Hand

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wash using soap post toilet, etc.

Masons’ training:

Masons’ training is conducted to

give exposure to local masons on

the low-cost technology yet

robust construction that could be

adopted to construct toilets and

provide water connections.

Masons are exposed to different

and right construction models

which do not result in extravagant

construction. Masons are

encouraged to adopt this model in

all their contracts and advise their

customers to reduce wasteful

expenditure. Many of our beneficiaries approach these masons to get water and

sanitation facilities constructed. During the quarter period,

Navya Disha organized 15 masons’ training with an aggregate participation of 640

masons. These trainings were conducted in Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Targeted number of masons’

training in the project year

15

Actual achieved 15

Mr, Manjunath Laxman Koli was Trained during Mason

Training held on 30th Sep 2012 at Labor Camp Hidkal

Dem Village belong to Sankeshwar Branch .

During the training, he became aware about the

importance of individual toilets and the health hazards

of open defecation. Before the training, he was

constructing septic tank with 3 chamber tank models but

after the training he is constructing 2 chamber tank

models.

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Meetings with Gram Panchayat members

Navya Disha interacts with Gram

Meetings with Gram Panchayat

members

Navya Disha interacts with Grama

Panchayat officials for all the villages

they operate. This provides a

platform to Navya Disha to

introduce the water and sanitation

program run and explain about the

efforts taken to increase the uptake

of water and sanitation facilities

among people.

Also, Navya Disha provides them

the list of beneficiaries and requests them for smoother processing of the benefits they are

entitled to from the government side.

Targeted number of meetings

with GP numbers in the project

year

100

Actual achieved 140

“I am not aware of the importance of WatSan before this program , Now I am confident of

motivating my constituency people”

-- a GP member of Uyyamballi, Kanakapura during the show

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Block level workshops:

These workshops attract

participation from all the villages in

a Taluka. Each village will be

represented by 5-10 clients of

Grameen Koota and their

friends/relatives.

The objective of the workshop is to

create awareness among the clients

on importance of water and

sanitation facilities and clear all their

doubts related to the subject. The

agenda involves – conveying

message through folk media, discussion on WatSan through the consultant/Subject

Matter Specialists, opinion sharing, experience sharing by the existing beneficiaries,

and mobilizing applications from interested clients to avail water and sanitation credit

facilities. Usually the interest levels expressed by clients are in groups and helps

creating impact in mass.

Targeted number of workshops in the

project year

29

Actual achieved 13

“No way out but decided to have tap connection and construction of toilet after attending

BLA as the program was multi-dimensional leaving no one without motivation to have both”

-- Ms Gowramma in Pandavapura

“I had undergone very many trainings, exposure visits and workshops but BLA is the only

event I ever remember and recollect”

-- Ms Sujatha during our LUC visit in Channapatna

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Village wall paintings:

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Mrs. Begaum Mohd Nadaf’s husband is

working in an auto garage. She has two

daughters aged 24 and 25 respectively and

two sons aged 14 and 22 respectively. Her

aged mother is 65 years old. She is silently

moving on with her life. 3 out of her 4

children have mentally challenged. Given

this situation, she is not sure how to handle

the circumstances. She is hanging on even

though all her children were born with

deformities.

She has been trying to give them good treatment so as to be able to give them as

normal a life as possible. She has travelled to several hospitals in Maharashtra

(Mumbai, Pune, Miraj, Sangli, etc.) but still hasn’t got any positive results. She has lost

time, money and hope… she continues living with God’s blessings.

Twenty years ago, a doctor in Mumbai told her that the issue with her children is a

result of inter-relation marriage. She was told not to lose hope and the issue can be

treated with continuous treatment. Under these circumstances, she is not having toilet

facility and has to take her children to public toilet every day. She shared that some

people shout at her and the judgmental stares pinches her. One day, she was taking

her daughter to the toilet and she fell on the road. She was not able to control her

and her daughter relieved herself in the open. This was a very embarrassing and

shameful incident. She shared that she has faced several problems like that.

She had once requested financial help, in vain, from the Gram Panchayat to construct

a toilet. There were empty promises made. She wanted to construct a toilet but she

needed financial help to do so. With the money she had, she began to construct a

toilet in 2012 was not able to complete it due to lack of funds. One fine day, she

came to know at the Kendra meeting about Grameen Koota and availed loan and

successfully completed the construction of the toilet. She is thankful to Grameen Koota

for the loan for alleviating some of her challenges.

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Partnerships

Navya Disha has worked with water.org, FWWB and FINISH during the past year for the

awareness activities; and with SFI and NBFC for financial assistance program.

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Lessons Learned

Various initiatives undertaken by Navya Disha to promote water and sanitation program

have resulted in positive actions by clients and other key stakeholders. Loan Utilization

Checks done by Navya Disha team have shown that more than 80% of the beneficiaries

have either commenced the construction/completed construction in less than 15 days of

loan disbursement by Grameen Koota.

However, there have been some challenges the team has come across and the team has

worked toward addressing them. The summary of the challenges are listed below:

Water

o Non-availability of additional water connections: Local administration was

not allowing additional water connection due to shortage of water. To

address this,

We carried out field study to understand the issue

Based on the finding, we expanded loan usage for underground

storage facility and over-head tanks along with 1HP motor for

storage and efficient use of water.

In places where water sources are scarce or not available, customers

were suggested for digging well.

o Non-availability of storage tanks: Though customers have water

connections, they were not having storage facility. Started creating

awareness only in villages where functional storage tanks were available.

o Higher Local Administration Fee: There was Increased deposit for water

connection and demand for payment of accumulated tax dues before

giving connection. GK had tried to intervene but of not much success as

these rules varies at different local administration.

Sanitation

o Mis-utilization of loans: Initially, in some cases the utilization of loans

turned out to be fungible. Also, there was lack of planning in construction

of toilets leading to over-expenditure. To address this,

There were more intense training program prepared for clients to

make them aware of proper sanitation benefits

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We provided technical assistance, mason training & improved

monitoring of sanctioned loans

o Lack of motivation: For some clients, cost seemed to be on the higher side

and was not motivated to mobilize the remaining portion of the amount

over and above the credit facility. To address this,

The team came up with 3 different models of toilets depending on

the cost, need and space available for construction

Also, post construction, we also support clients in availing subsidy of

Rs.9,400 from Government

o Lack of support from local administration: In the initial phase, local

administration and/or gram panchayat were reluctant to support

construction of toilets for various reasons including cost, culture, etc. To

address this,

We worked to improve communication with local administration

We carried out Gram Panchayat & Block Level Awareness Programs

Unforseen situation: Drought

During the project year, Karnataka witnessed one of the worst droughts in over a

decade of time. Navya Disha had not accounted these factors, and did not expect

that local government or Panchayat would not come forward to approve

individual water connections and also beneficiaries themselves were not willing to

take up the connection – as the principal source of water for them would be Over

Head Tanks and due to drought OHTs were going dry.

Navya Disha realized that there have to be alternate ways of providing

beneficiaries safe access to water, according to their requirements and feasibility.

The result of which were some of the proposals on different solutions made to

Water.org – storage tanks, and pumps to protected sources of water were

accepted.

Looking Ahead

Drought situation in Karnataka and also Maharashtra are key contentions. In the second

project year, Navya Disha will be getting in the state of Maharashtra as well. Navya

Disha team would take a stock of the situation in Maharashtra and based on that would

decide to extend this program to more than the required number of branches as

executed in Karnataka. This may result in higher expenditure than anticipated and further

requirement of human resources.

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As part of Company’s social goals, 100% of clients should have access to water

connections & should have sanitation units by 2018

Conceptualizing Sugrama model for community based approach: We are in the

process of adopting one Gram Panchayat each in Tumkur & Belgaum district to:

o Promote water connections

o Create awareness regarding rain water harvesting structure & water

management

o Conduct feasibility study to set up RO plants

o Increase density of sanitation

o Study and implement effective drainage system to enable sanitation waste

to be used for Bio-Gas generation

Plan to study and implement a resource center for training on Water & Sanitation

for all stakeholders (internal & external) and other institutions who are interested

in starting & implementing the said program

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Appendix – A

Operational roll-out of the Program:

The program started by introducing water and sanitation program across 30 branches

in Karnataka and was later scaled additional 30 branches. Two project offices of

Navya Disha operating from Karnataka were involved in awareness campaigns and

capacity building exercises in 60 branches assigned to each of them.

Now, both the project offices are monitoring all GK branches across Karnataka, Tamil

Nadu and Maharashtra. Tumkur Navya Disha project office has been monitoring South

and Central regions of Karnataka and 5 Tamil Nadu branches under the leadership of

Mr. Yenjerappa. Belgaum Navya Disha project office has been monitoring North region

of Karnataka and Maharashtra branches under the leadership of Mr. S.N. Doni.

Based on the outcomes from the field experience of Navya Disha staff in the 1st year and

a discussion we had on the activities at Navyadisha project staff meeting; decision has

been taken to stop the soft components like street play, mason trainings, block level

workshop and GP trainings for time being (in the months January and February 2013)

and to intensively focus branch training and Kendra level training/review in aid covering

all GK branches and GK clients on Water and Sanitation issues.

Since April 2013, Navya Disha team has returned to its mainstream activities.

Loan programs tweaked to meet the needs of the people

In aid of reaching out more needy and genuine clients of the non OHT villages; GK has

decided to add various water loan products like Storage tank, digging open well and

fixing motor pump to water source and the same has discussed with funding agency

water.org and got approval for above said loan products. Apart from these; Grameen

Koota designed a credit program to provide access to water and sanitation facilities to its

clients based on the responses received from its clients from the market study conducted.

Recently, (with effect from the 22.12.2012); in aid addressing to request came from the

both the GK field staffs and as well as clients; GK has been given some relaxation in the

process of water and sanitation loan disbursement like; no documents required for water

loans.

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During the quarter, no changes in the features in the credit program.

Features of the credit program extended by Grameen Koota:

Feature Water Connection loan Sanitation loan

Loan amount

Up to Rs. 5,000 (Quantum of loan

to be decided by the Branch

Manager based on cost of water

connection on case to case basis)

Up to Rs. 10,000 (Quantum of

loan to be decided by the Branch

Manager based on cost of water

connection on case to case basis)

Interest rate

22% pa. on reducing balance

Processing fee +

Service Tax

1.1% of the loan amount

Repayment

frequency Weekly/Biweekly/Monthly

Repayment

period 12 months 24 months

Life Insurance

premium

Rs. 75/- (including member and

spouse)

Rs. 300/- (including member and

spouse)

Documents required from clients:

Identity proof document of the borrower

Address proof document of the borrower

(Both photo ID and address proof (photo copies) should be duly attested by the

BM after affixing the branch seal.)

Photo of Member and Spouse (taken together)

Note: Earlier, documents like Revenue paid receipt, Khata Extract, Sale deed etc. (To

prove the ownership of house) are required to get loan disbursed. Now, this clause has

been removed.

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Loan credit process

The following processes have been laid by Grameen Koota for loan approval,

disbursement and collection:

Loan

approval

process

a) The loan is considered only after being satisfied about the

repaying capacity of the member.

b) The total loans outstanding from GK including the loan applied

for should be taken into account for deciding who the approval

authority is.

The Loans approval authority limits are as under:

Approving

Authority

Approval Limit

Branch

Manager

Up to Rs 15,000 (which excludes EL)

Area Manager Above Rs 15,000 up to

Rs 25,000 (which excludes EL)

Regional

Manager

Above Rs 25,000

(which includes EL)

Loan

disbursement

process

a) The necessary announcement are made at the Kendra meeting

regarding the scheme

b) In the same meeting or in the next Kendra meeting, loan

application forms are collected.

c) Before taking final decision on the loan application, the

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branches are required to enter the loan application in Mifos.

d) All these applications will be processed with inputs from credit

bureau and overlap reports obtained and made available for

branches within 2 working days.

The loan applications would be rejected wherein the member has:

I. Active accounts with more than one MFI, other than GK,

II. Total outstanding exceeding Rs 50,000 and

III. Default accounts with other MFIs

e) All other cleared loan applications will be processed further

and a decision taken on the proposal by the concerned

sanctioning authority for sanction or rejection.

f) In case of rejection of loan the member is informed about the

reasons for rejection in the next Kendra meeting.

g) After loan approval, loan amount is disbursed as per the

existing loan disbursement process.

Loan

collection

process

a) Loan repayment installment amount appear in the collection

sheet for all disbursed loans as usual

b) Collect exact amount matching the value and submit the same

to the cashier along with other collections

c) Data Entry Operator will pass the entries for the collections as

usual

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